Black Rain
by PWTMC
Summary: Sakura wakes up from a head injury to a world she doesn't recognize. Post-apocalypse, eventual KakaSaku. AU.
1. Wake Up

OOO

When Sakura woke up the first thing that hit her was the headache.

It was worse than anything she could ever recall having in her entire life, a sharp sting behind her eyes and carrying on through the rest of her head. Kind of like a hangover magnified times a million and it was making her nauseous like one, too.

Her hand flew up to her face and she tried to clutch at her aching skull, but that didn't go so well. She had bandages on the side of her head and she could feel that they were wet. She already bled through them.

Then, through the searing pain, she missed the sound of movement beside her bed, but she definitely did not miss the sound of a man's voice, proclaiming, "She's awake!"

Her eyes cracked open and everything was blurry, but she could make out his shape in a room she didn't recognize. Another rushed over to her and a pair of large, rough hands gripped the sides of her face.

"How bad does it hurt?" A deep voice asked, as her head was tilted to the side. She could feel one of the hands leave her jaw and inspect her bandage.

She tried to respond, but found that she couldn't. Even the motion of unsuccessfully opening her jaw enough to form a word felt like too much work. How would it even be possible to find the words to describe it when she could hardly think?

Then, through the pain, a wave of nausea hit. It was so sudden she couldn't do anything about it but roll over and throw up. She ended up rolling the wrong way and getting it across the other side of her bed. That, however, didn't bother her nearly as much as the stinging burn in her throat or the way vomiting always managed to leave her breathless, Struggling to maintain a steady flow of air only made her head pound harder and she found herself vomiting again.

"I suppose it's unbearable, then?" Came the same voice, accompanied by large hands raking her bangs out of her face and feeling her forehead.

He sighed and then took his hands back.

Sakura wanted to cry so bad, but the body-wracking sobs she was dying to let off would surely only agitate her fragile being more than she could handle at the moment. She knew that for sure.

"You should probably rest." He said, and now Sakura knew that if she rolled over to face him she could get a good look at whoever she was with. It couldn't be a doctor, this definitely wasn't a hospital, and even if it was he didn't seem to have much medical training.

The room was dark and the air was thick and muggy. It smelled like a basement and was probably filled with all the same germs and bacteria, a totally disgusting thought. The bed she had been put on didn't have sheets and it creaked loudly every time her caretaker moved forward to touch her and he wasn't even on the damn thing with her.

"Hey, Tsunade, can you come in here for a minute? She's awake!" The man yelled, making Sakura cringe.

And what if she hadn't been rescued from certain death after all? Sakura realized, her haze slowly fading and her pain steadily increasing, that she couldn't even remember where she was or how she got here. She supposed head injuries could do that to people. And that was the only explanation for her predicament.

But what if she had been kidnapped?

She curled in on herself, bringing trembling hands up to her face. The urge to cry hit harder because now not only was she sick, but she was terrified and confused, a million questions racing through her injured brain.

The click of high heels was unpleasant on her head and the woman wearing them was loud, much louder than her male companion.

"Roll her over." The woman commanded.

Sakura's hands tightened in her hair and she forced out her first word since waking up, a horrible "No" that didn't sound like it should have even come out of her mouth. That wasn't her voice. Then again, Sakura had no idea how long she was out for. Who knew when the last time she spoke was? Sakura certainly couldn't remember.

"I know it hurts, hun." Came the man's voice. As sympathetic as he sounded, he still gripped her and turned her over, giving her a clear view of a far too bright light and two people she had never seen a day in her life.

The man had messy gray hair that hung down almost at shoulder length in choppy layers. He clearly didn't care too much about it, or probably anything else about his physical appearance considering his white t-shirt had a bloodstain right at the hemline and the caked on dirt covering his fingerless gloves was now all over his pants.

The woman was a bit neater. Her blonde hair was thrown up into ponytails, her dress pressed and clean. She had a stethoscope wrapped around her shoulders and a pair of latex gloves in one of her hands – she had painted nails and all.

The sight of her made Sakura feel slightly better, like maybe she hadn't been kidnapped after all.

Her name was Tsunade, as she recalled.

Her brown eyes scanned Sakura's form critically as she slid the gloves on. A full examination was apparently in order. Tsunade took the chair previously occupied by the man Sakura woke up to and moved in closer, asking the same question, "How bad does it hurt?"

"I don't exactly think she's up to talking right now."

Tsunade sighed, "Shut up, Kakashi. And go away, why don't you? The boys are going out for a water run, maybe you could accompany them? You're already dressed for it."

He, Kakashi, rolled his curiously mismatched eyes, "I just got back from a supply run with Genma and Raidou. What are you looking for, enough water to last a lifetime? Because water evaporates, Tsunade."

"Not when it's in containers, dumbass." Tsunade's attention returned to Sakura, her delicate hands settling against the side of her skull, "Now go do as I say, alright? Don't wash up first, you're just going to get dirty again. You'll be traveling to the outskirts of old Sunagakure."

She got an immediate groan from Kakashi, followed by the ever classy, "Fuuuck!"

Tsunade tried to be gentle as she directed Sakura to look at her.

OOO


	2. Lucidity

OOO

The door opening and shutting carelessly loud jarred Sakura from sleep for the millionth time in as many hours. The waves of nausea had started to fade and every time she was pulled from sleep and back to consciousness, she felt just a little bit better than the last. The young woman still had no idea where she was and couldn't put together any of the pieces of the puzzle that made up how she got here or what she was doing here, but a feeling of security began to rapidly set in.

She was asked to eat constantly, checked in on by Tsunade - who she learned was very blunt and very brilliant, a definite leader - who had obviously taken a liking to her. Sakura couldn't understand why, seeing as all she did was whine and throw up, but her near constant voice in the hallway was comforting.

She definitely wasn't home and she couldn't shake the odd feeling of uncertainty, but she was positive that where ever she was, nobody wanted to hurt her.

Was this a hospital after all?

She groaned, bringing a hand up to her face and rubbing at her closed eyes. The taste in her mouth was indescribably awful, left over from all the throwing up surely. She needed to brush her teeth, but standing up couldn't be any fun. Not while she was feeling this horrible. And it wasn't like she had a toothbrush on her, anyway.

"Good evening."

She rolled, glancing over at Kakashi standing in the doorway.

"Hardly." She replied, voice coming out rough from disuse. She sounded awful. But at least she was starting to feel better and now maybe she could ask a few of those nagging questions. The whole hospital vibe that was making her thing everything was okay, that she hadn't been kidnapped and that she wasn't in trouble, could all be wrong, anyway. The logical side of herself screamed at her to stay on guard.

Especially in front of men like Kakashi.

But right now she looked weak and sick and like an easy target. For anything.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, taking a couple steps closer and tugging the chair to her bedside. He sat there, next to her.

"Not good, really."

"Oh, well, that's understandable. Tsunade had to give you stitches, after all."

Sakura's mind switched into a rapid panic. Stitches? Where? She tugged her blanket down, revealing torn and dirty clothing, and she began to run her hands over her body critically, searching.

Kakashi reached out and stopped her, "Relax. They're on the back of your head."

He reached forward again with his free hand and pressed it against her hair. She could feel the slight sting and she pushed his hand aside and replaced it with her own. What the hell happened to her? She'd never needed stitches in her entire life, how did she even hurt herself? When she woke up, she didn't remember bleeding.

She did remember a pounding headache, though.

"Well, so, aside from the head injury - "

"I don't even remember getting a head injury."

Kakashi sighed, leaned back in his chair, and ran a hand through his hair. Sakura noticed that even though he had cleaned himself up since their last meeting, it was still a mess. Not one of his priorities, apparently.

"You don't remember how you got here?" He asked.

"No! Not at all!"

Her voice had regained it's strength rapidly and she was wide awake now, thanks to the wide range of hurried emotions she'd been forced in and out of in these past few fleeting moments.

"If you've got amnesia now, too, I think I'd better go grab Tsunade and let her check you out again."

He offered a brief smile and pushed back, going to stand. Sakura grabbed him by the wrist, grasp weak, but he didn't pull away from her.

"No way! You're going to stay here and give me some goddamn answers!"

Kakashi turned back, "I think I'd better go get Tsunade. You need a doctor more than you need to know where you are. Honestly, I came in here worried about your possible radiation exposure and now you've got something else going on, too. Why don't we just worry about patching you up before the question and answer session, yeah?"

Sakura could feel the confused expression sliding over her face, her hand falling from Kakashi's wrist.

"Wait, what? Radiation? How the hell would I even get exposed to that? Where the hell am I? And how did I even get here?"

Kakashi shook his head, "How do you not remember the radiation? How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-two."

A second of silence elapsed and both of them were able to take a breath. Kakashi sighed, rubbing circles into his forehead absentmindedly with one pale hand, the other falling to his hip as he slouched forward.

"Do you remember your name?"

She nodded, "Of course I do. It's Sakura."

He nodded back at her, slowly. "Let me just go get Tsunade. You, dear, have a lot of crap you need to be remembering. I don't know how you're supposed to survive here without doing so. See, you're simply worrying about your head injury."

Sakura quirked an eyebrow in question. If Kakashi was about to get all condescending and pretentious on her, she'd just roll right back around and ignore him. That was never a trait she appreciated much.

"Well," He continued, "Let me be the first to re-welcome you the nuclear winter."

OOO

Note: Has anyone ever played Metro 2033? That's the kind of nuclear winter I'm going for. I do realize how unrealistic of a scenario Metro 2033 presents (what with everybody being, you know, alive and whatnot), but for the sake of the story it's perfect. Metro 2033 was a book, too. I didn't read it. I just played the game.

BTW, holy crap, when I uploaded this fic I had no idea it was like seventy-five words off my regular thousand. Sorry about that.


End file.
